God's Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue, and Power--A History of the Jesuits

by Jonathan Wright

Throughout history members of the Society of Jesus, popularly known as Jesuits, have been accused of killing kings and presidents, have traveled as missionaries to every corner of the globe, founded haciendas in Mexico, explored the Mississippi and Amazon rivers, and served Chinese emperors as map makers, painters, and astronomers. As well as the predictable roll call of saints and martyrs, the Society can also lay claim to the thirty-five craters on the moon named for Jesuit scientists. Jesuits have been despised and idolized on a scale unknown to members of any other religious order; they have died the most horrible deaths and done the most outlandish deeds.

Whether loved or loathed, the Jesuits’ dramatic and wide-ranging impact could never be ignored. By the mid-eighteenth century, they had established more than 650 educational institutions. They were also strongly committed to foreign missions, and like the secular explorers and settlers of the Age of Discovery, they traveled to the Far East, India, and the Americas to stake a claim. They were especially successful in Latin America, where they managed to put numerous villages entirely under Jesuit rule.

The Jesuits’ successes both in Europe and abroad, coupled with rumors of scandal and corruption within the order, soon drew criticism from within the Church and without. Writers such as Pascal and Voltaire wrote polemics against them, and the absolute monarchs of Catholic Europe sought to destroy them. Their power was seen as so threatening that hostility escalated into serious political feuds, and at various times they were either banned or harshly suppressed throughout Europe.

God’s Soldiers is a fascinating chronicle of this celebrated, mysterious, and often despised religious order. Jonathan Wright illuminates as never before their enduring contributions as well as the controversies that surrounded them. The result is an in-depth, unbiased, and utterly compelling history.

Genres: Religion, History, Christianity, Nonfiction, France, Catholic, Christian

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator. He studied Arabic, Turkish and Islamic civilization at St John's College, Oxford. He joined Reuters news agency in 1980 as a correspondent, and has been based in the Middle East for most of the last three decades. He has served as Reuters' Cairo bureau chief, and he has lived and worked throughout the region, including in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the Gulf. From 1998 to 2003, he was based in Washington, DC, covering U.S. foreign policy for Reuters.
Wright came to literary translation comparatively late. His first major work of translation was Taxi, the celebrated book by Egyptian writer Khaled al-Khamissi. This was published by Aflame Books in 2008 and republished by Bloomsbury Qatar in 2012. Since then, he has translated several works including Azazeel and The State of Egypt.

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1357804.html[return][return]This is not a terribly impressive book. It is a more or less chronological account of details of history featuring the Jesuits, with no deep analysis and rather few hard facts - nothing at all to explain their internal structure, miserably brief accounts of how they were founded in 1534 and re-established in 1814. Wright is slightly better on the various political controversies that Jesuits have been involved in, though even here his analysis basically amounts to there being two sides of the story. He is good on the Jesuits' contribution to science. He is wholly inadequate on their contribution to colonialism. I can't really recommend this book.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Society of Jesus - soldiers, missionaries, gray eminences, arrogant know-it-alls, what? This book talks about their origins in the 1500s, their suppression by the Catholic church (yes, really) in the 1700s, and their modern presence today.

The first half of the book is solid, I think, with no punches pulled with regard to the Society's presence in colonial expansion projects around the world. Then starts focusing more on the Society's contributions to science, and the writing becomes more rosy and seems to skim over things. Why was the society suppressed? Well, no good reason (according to the author), it was only heresay...

I had trouble finding a book on the Jesuits that was even remotely balanced or objective. This was a fair example of a balanced book, even if it did tip the balance in the end. Recommended, although I'd keep an eye out for other, more critical, books on the subject to balance things out.

[Lisa Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe I didn't know that Pope Francis is a Jesuit! That explains a lot. Wright is not the best storyteller, but this is a good overview of the impact that the Jesuits have had on the past 400 years of world history--they had a huge effect not only on religion and philosophy, but also on politics, mathematics, astronomy, linguistics and education among other areas.

I recommend this book to those who believe that religion is antithetical to science and social progress. Read this and you will see how much is owed to religious orders, in this case the Jesuits.

The book is very even-handed and doesn't gloss over any of the problematic parts of the Jesuit's history, but takes an honest look at the good and bad.

[Wendy Jackson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so disappointing. I wanted to like it - I really did. However, I found the writing and structure exceedingly difficult to follow. While there was a very broad chronological order to the chapters, I found that within chapters, there was still jumping around in time (and geographically), there was no obvious structure to the order of material within the chapters, and innumerable threads of information were brought up and then dropped countless times. It was exhausting to try to follow and keep things straight. I just skimmed the last few chapters because figuring it out just seemed futile.

Having said that, the author (or his assistants) did a meticulous job with research. An incredible amount of detailed information at a highly granular level is included in the book.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my TBR shelf far too long so I decided in the interest of finding room for other books to read this. I originally was interested in the history of the Jesuits because of their influence on world events and education. This book takes a fairly balanced look at this Society of Jesus from it's founding in 1534 to present, though most of the book deals with the religious orders prominence between its founding until it was decline in the mid-18th C. The Jesuits were an order famous for its Catholic scholars and evangelists, having opened Asia to the Western world through its determined work of bringing Christianity to the world. While not established to fight heresy, the order proved particularly adept at that but due to the order being so closely associated with papal power and Roman intrigue as only the popes of this period could do, the order they were the subject of great criticism both by Catholics and Protestants. The first half of the book dealing with the adventures in Asia and North America were the best parts. The latter half seemed to drag on. Always good to read a history book.

[Joey Brockert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christian soldiers march on. The Jesuits were the most devoted soldiers of the Catholic church two hundred years ago. It was most interesting to read about this 'new' Catholic order. I thought they were all a thousand years old, but this one is barely 500 years old. It has a rcord of independence of thought and action that has gotten it into trouble with the church beaucracy. It is also one of the orders that was on the forefront of evanglizing the Indians, Chinese and Japanese (remember, Marquette was a Jesuit priest).
I had to really not 'get involved' in the part of fighting over religious sects in Europe. It was so pointless to me: these were all people who were believing in Jesus, so they were all going to heaven anyway, why fight? In India or Mayalsia, I could understand it better, but still it seemed to be an odd thing to fight over, whether or not the people believed in the Catholic or Lutheran or whatever church.

[Enrique · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of the book is well crafted, but the final chapter glosses over the Jesuit's history in the 20th century. He mentions the murder of the six Jesuits and their housemaid during El Salvador's civil war, but failed to mention the six may have been actively supporting the FMLN against the government. He also brings up liberation theology without mentioning that Liberation Theology was part of a clandestine KGB program during the Cold War. Liberation Theology's connection the Soviets only became public years after the end of the Cold War.

[Mark Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you already know the history of the Jesuits, this book could be an interesting commentary. But it is not a good introductory history. It is very pro Jesuits, missing the negative aspects. I need a different history that is more balanced.

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fair amount of interesting sections, but doesn't seem to give a particularly strong timeline of main events, discussing controversies and perceptions of Jesuits to a much greater extent. The more interesting sections don't go in much depth.

[Bernard Sintobin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interessant maar qua taal en stijl problematisch. Zowel woordgebruik als schrijfstijl maken dit Engelstalig boek een (te) zware opgave voor een non-native reader. Ik ben dan ook gestopt na 80 bladzijden.

[Michael Baranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the Jesuits - more or less the Marine Corps of Roman Catholic religious orders. (And so, as a Marine, I'm naturally drawn to them.)

[Mihai Adrian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Asta nu este o lectura, este mai degrabă un jurnal cronologic combinat cu lucruri spuse la întâmplare despre Iezuiți.

[Elliot Lake · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is all over the place.

I think that the author would have been well advised to understand what Catholicism is before trying to understand who the Jesuits are.

Most of the book is very meh. For such a narrow topic, it's astonishingly bare on detail. I can't recall most of the names mentioned, because he doesn't elaborate much on the people themselves. He'll mention a name in a single sentence, and then expect us to retain that same name 70 pages and 1 week later. He doesn't even make the basic effort of introducing the founder, St Ignatius Of Loyola.

I assume there are more errors, but one I noticed is that he asserts at one point Thomas A Kempis was a Jesuit in spite of having been dead 20 years before St Ignatius was even born.

The last two chapters are absolutely abysmal. He clearly hasn't read the source material here, and makes a very glaring error regarding the Vatican's treatment of the Third Reich. In addition, his opposition to Neothomism is bizarre and unfounded, and his support for Modernism to lack the perspective of the tradition. If he had known what It would actually mean for these "modern" ideas to be integrated, I think he may have been hesitant to write so positively of them.

Overall, I can't recommend this.

[ltcomdata · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book which gives a portrait of the Jesuit History. It is quite meandering, and I would have benefited from a more in depth treatment, with a lot less deviations. On the positive side, the book does have quite a few historical anecdotes about many Jesuits, and thus provides the names of many less known historical figures. On the negative side, many a name is given less than one paragraph of treatment. It is aimed at the general public with an interest in the Jesuits. It intends to capture the flavor of the Jesuit order in history, as well as the myths that surround it.

[Ranní ptáče · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalo by se říci, že je to pokračování Zapálených jezuitů.
A skoro stejně dobře se to čte.
Kniha je ale nevyvážená - zatímco o misijní činnosti z počátků řádu se dozvídáme veškeré šťavnaté detaily (stahování z kůže, skalpování), 19. a 20. stoletím autor prolétne takřka světelnou rychlostí a spíše než o jezuitech mluví obecně o vývoji církve.
Taky by mě zajímalo, zda hovorové výrazy, které se místy objevují, jsou dílem autora, nebo překladatele.

[Alene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all missionaries, they did a lot of great things, and a lot of atrocious things. but i believe there are no good people and bad people, just people that do good and bad things, and I loved reading about how human they are, and how sometimes the best of intentions go awry without even being able to see it. I love trying to understand the form that redemption can come in too.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engagingly-written basic history of the Jesuit order. I'm learning that their global cultural impact has been on par (if it has not surpassed) the impact of their missionary endeavors.

[Caroline Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now that a new pope has been chosen and he is the first Jesuit to hold this position, I started reading this for some background on a rather controversial religious order.

[Blake Spraggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a great idea for a book, but the execution is disappointing. I think the topic is too big for a popular treatment like this.

[Jack Warford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very tough read but VERY informative.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads a little too much like a refutation of attacks against the Jesuits. Nevertheless an interesting read.